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I've just bought
Goldfinger on DVD. Here are some of the thoughts that I thought
whilst watching it. Having seen it several times on television as a child
I find it hard to imagine the film as it must have seemed the first time
I saw it when I was a child several viewings hence, a sentence I will
probably rewrite later.
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There are three types of 'Bond girl' - the one that survives,
the ones that get killed, and the one that pops up very briefly at the
beginning and never appears again (such as Bonita here).
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1. In common with Bond films of this period, the character described
in the theme song could be both the villain of the film, and Bond himself,
thus expressing the paradoxical duality and so forth.
Goldfinger, we are told, is unemotional, cold, and enjoys luring pretty
girls into his "web of sin" before causing their deaths. Similarly,
the subject of the Thunderball theme tune was a man of action, one
who is never satisfied, and who strikes with great speed and force. The
Man with the Golden Gun cannot be caught, he cannot be matched, and
he enjoys a steady diet of sex and violence (and, for that matter, he has
a "powerful weapon"). Live and Let Die seems to explore
Bond's personal philosophy, although Bond does not seem like the kind of
person to "break down and cry". Actually, I have no idea what
Live and Let Die was about, but it had a good fast bit.
Apparently, Nobody Does it Better was the first song to be exclusively
about Bond. For Your Eyes Only is the only one to be about a piece
of civil service jargon. Except for On Her Majesty's Secret Service,
but that doesn't count because it's an instrumental.
Goldfinger was a big hit single. Quite what the people who had not
heard of the film thought of it, I can't imagine. It doesn't really work
- and is in fact quite surreal - unless you are familiar with the plot.
I mean, "you're gonna lose that girl" is fairly universal, and
everybody can understand that. But "pretty girl, beware of his web
of sin"? What's all that about? Whose web of sin? Goldfinger's? Who
the heck's he? What 'pretty girl'? Web? Eh?
1b. Although a classic song, the lyrics of the Goldfinger
theme seem to fit The Man with the Golden Gun's Scaramanga more than
they fit Goldfinger. The song portrays Goldfinger as a dangerous womaniser,
whereas the reality does not appear to have any interest in the fairer sex
- the few women we see him interact with seem to be merely employees.
3. The Aston Martin DB5 appears, for the first time, as James Bond's
transport. In this film, Bond is clearly supposed to represent 'old money',
the only kind of people who could afford to buy and run a DB5 at the time.
Whilst the Fleming Bond is well-off to begin with, and thus hard to relate
to, Connery gives the impression that Bond started off solidly working-class,
and rose through the Navy to become a gestalt, capable of blending with
all walks of life.
Nowadays, well-preserved DB5s command over £40,000, depending on colour
and condition. This is considerably cheaper than a brand new Tomorrow
Never Dies BMW 7-series, a car which outperforms the DB5 in all areas
except style. And Bond films are all about style.
The DB5 was, and remains, a decadent 'iron fist in a velvet glove'. Roger
Moore's Lotus Esprit was, in comparison, a cheap and tacky plastic toy,
whilst Pierce Brosnan's BMWs appear to be the erotic dreams of the vulgar
people in the sales department.
In 1964, BMW were mostly famous in the UK for their amusing bubble car,
the Isetta, whilst the British Leyland juggernaut was one of the biggest
car companies in the world. In a complete reversal of fortune, BMW now own
Rolls-Royce, and have recently finished chewing up and spitting out the
minute, indigestible husk of what is left of the British automobile industry.
The DB5 was followed by the similar, heavier DB6, which was in turn replaced
by the DBS, as driven briefly by George Lazenby at the end of On Her
Majesty's Secret Service. Aston Martin then changed tack and produced
the Aston Martin V8, an American-style muscle car.
3b. Oddly, trailers from 1964 seem less naff than trailers from 1984.
I think this is because trailers from 1964 are too bizarre for me to judge
properly, whereas trailers from 1984 are familiar enough for me to tell
if they have failed. "Double-oh seven!", say the trailers, "It
spells... BOND!" Which isn't strictly true.
5. There's an 'original publicity featurette', and it's in black
and white. This puzzled me at first, until I remembered that television
wasn't in colour in 1964, at least not in the UK. It's shot on film, and
is very scratchy. Wouldn't it have made more sense to shoot it in colour,
so that it could be shown on television in the US? Then again, when did
colour television take off in the States? I remember 'I Love Lucy' being
in black and white. I should look this up. Perhaps it was in colour, and
the colour washed out? Or perhaps it was in colour, but the only copy remaining
is a black and white print, or a black and white recording of the colour
original?
6. Oddjob is played by a wrestler named Harold Sakata, although that
is apparently a pseudonym. As a kid, I thought he was cool. And he was.
And still is. Nowadays, however, my appreciation of Sakata's screen presence
is diminished by the constant gnawing voice in my head that whispers 'Neil
Sedaka... Neil Sedaka...' whenever I hear his name. SHUT UP! GO AWAY! STOP!
NO! Bad bad bad bad bad sorry sorry sorry.
He doesn't seem nasty enough to be a villain, though. Not in the same way
as, for example, Scorpio from Dirty Harry.
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On the left, an image from the finished film of Bond's
DB5 coming to rest for the last time, embedded in a brick wall. On the
right, the same sequence from the theatrical trailer culminates with the
DB5 driving straight through the brick wall, presumably from an earlier
take. You can't see this at all, can you? Trust me.
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7. Goldfinger's evil scheme is to render the gold in Fort Knox useless
by way of radiation, thus increasing the value of his own horde tenfold.
Question is, would irradiating the gold in Fort Knox achieve anything? We're
supposed to think that, if the gold is inaccessible, it can't be used, but
surely there's nothing to stop the authorities from simply issuing tokens
to symbolise the gold, and selling them instead? A bit like money, in fact.
If Goldfinger planned to simply blow the gold to bits, it might make sense,
but even then, couldn't the authorities just use imaginary gold instead?
2. The ejector seat appears to be a sly joke. Initially, Bond pooh-poohs
the device, and the scene in Q's laboratory is played in such a way that
the seat appears to be a throwaway joke. Later on in the film, Bond has
an opportunity to use it, and presumably the audience is going 'Ah - it
wasn't a joke after all'. Thus the film exceeds people's expectations, which
is a good thing.
8. Jill Masterson is killed by skin suffocation. As a child, this
always puzzled me. Surely, when you're swimming, your entire body is immersed
in water - why don't you suffocate then? Eh? Is there such a medical condition,
or is it made up?
11. I always wanted a car crusher when I was a kid. So I could crush
things.
8. Despite his reputation as a cold-blooded killer, Bond is surprisingly
passive in this film. He only fires his gun in one scene, and kills a total
of three people - the man in the bath, an unnamed security guard, and Oddjob
- all in warm blood. He doesn't even polish off the film's villain, as Goldfinger
becomes victim of his own clumsiness.
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On the left we see the hand of Margaret Nolan, aka 'Dink',
the impressively-balconied masseuse. Note the oddly-shaped pinkie. On
the right, an impostor from one of the TV trailers. Note the
perfectly-formed
fingers and the absence of a projected Goldfinger.
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10. Goldfinger carries a golden gun - although it's a revolver, and
doesn't turn into a lighter, a pen, and the other bit.
11. Goldfinger is one of three Bond films to have the word
'gold' in the title. Goldfinger was hit enough to ensure the series
a few more films yet, and the immediate follow-ups, Thunderball and
You Only Live Twice, went on to be two of the most popular films
of the decade. A decade later, The Man with the Golden Gun was the
series' nadir, both financially and artistically - despite Christopher Lee
and an impressive car jump (albeit one ruined by a dubbed-over penny whistle),
it just didn't seem like a Bond film. Just over two decades after that,
Goldeneye was a triumphant return for the series after six years
of legal wrangles following Licence to Kill, another curiously un-Bond-like
Bond film. It must be noted that no Bond film has ever lost money.
10. A promotional film in one of the documentaries describes Goldfinger
as a 'millionaire'. Back in 1964, that probably meant something.
9. Four blocks of walnut can support an elephant.
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Two images from the theatrical trailer, illustrating how
easy it is to make respected actors look silly by freeze-framing their
faces whilst in the middle of an exertion. On the left, Sean Connery models
the 'Stanley Kubrick Stare'. I could make a whole website out of this
kind of thing.
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12. When I was a kid I had a model of the Aston Martin DB5, complete
with ejector seat and bullet-proof rear panel. That was in the early-80s,
which - even allowing for the possibility that it was second-hand - must
be some kind of durability record for film merchandising. I also had a
sub-aquatic Lotus Esprit, but that was boring because it didn't do
anything, it just sat there.
2. Goldfinger is, according to one of the trailers, a 'triumph
in thrill-making cinema entertainment' (spoken in rat-tat-tat style in
less than two seconds).
17. In the same trailer Goldfinger is described as being an 'international
cheat' and an 'international menace'. Since when did the secret intelligence
service go after 'cheats' and 'menaces'?
13. Staying with that trailer, they include the 'No, Mr Bond -
I expect you to die!' line. They knew a thing or two in the past.
12. One of the commentary tracks features an American James Bond
fan who says "Aston Martin DB Faaahv".
1. I was under the impression that martial arts didn't take off
in the West until the 1970s. However, Oddjob is described in one of the
radio trailers as a 'karate killer'. I have no idea how well-known karate
was in 1964. Having said that, there was - oddly enough - Spencer Tracy
in 1955's 'Bad Day at Black Rock' (a kind of 50s equivalent of The
Terminator, in that it was short, sharp and cheap in an age of bloated
epics), so I suppose it wasn't totally unknown.
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